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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, March 29, 2024

New 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' trailer highlights tensions between characters

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The cast of "Avengers: Age of Ultron" explores team disputes and potential conflicts in new trailer for forthcoming film.

On Jan. 12, Marvel released the second trailer for “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” The first trailer premiered in October, showcasing the movie’s villain Ultron (voiced by James Spader) with an eerie cover of the song “I’ve Got No Strings” from the classic Disney movie “Pinocchio” (1940) playing in the background. A similarly disturbing acoustic version of the song plays during the newest trailer as well. This clip is a brief one minute and forty seconds, but is packed with new information about the film's plot.

There are a few new characters seen in this trailer, from the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to a mysterious woman standing in a cave, beside a body of water. It has been theorized that this woman is a tie to the upcoming Black Panther film starring Chadwick Boseman.

But even more intriguing than the new faces is the tone of the film. Based on the two trailers, the sequel to “The Avengers” (2012) seems far darker than its predecessor.  The new trailers seem designed to put the viewer on edge. Rather than focus on positive relationships between characters, the second trailer emphasizes the discord between the team's members. Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) asserts that the team has "no place in the world.” Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is seen fighting with the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) in his gigantic “Hulkbuster” armor. The colors of the trailer are dark and muted, and the characters seem consumed with worry or fear. This dark tone seems atypical of Marvel’s usual comicbook-based fare, escalating tensions through a different type of narrative.

Of course, the audience knows that there has to be some semblance of a happy ending, as “Captain America: Civil War” and “Thor: Ragnarok” are coming out in the next few years, not to mention the two-part “Avengers: Infinity War” films. It does lower the stakes a bit to know that this is only one part of a larger narrative, perhaps even a placeholder until the Infinity War movies. But despite knowledge of Marvel’s future plans, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is being marketed as an intriguingly dark foil to its more upbeat predecessor.